Inside The Bills

ESPN’s Sal Paolantonio, an at large Hall of Fame Selector looked favorably on Andre Reed’s candidacy, but knew his enshrinement would never be possible without a break in the logjam of wide receivers. As we covered in our story from inside the Selectors room there was a determined effort to break the stalemate at receiver between Tim Brown, Cris Carter and Andre Reed in 2013.

“The fact that Reed wasn’t in there earlier was more because of politics and the dynamics of the vote and who was getting in and who wasn’t getting in,” said Paolantonio. “Just me reading the room it felt like it was time to put certain defensive players in. There aren’t enough defensive players in. There were too many wide receivers, too many offensive players so there was a logjam created prior to two years ago. So two years ago there was a concerted effort to get out a hammer and a chisel and break that logjam, first with Cris Carter and then Andre Reed.”

Ultimately what sold Paolantonio was his belief that the epitath for those Bills teams had to include Reed’s name.

“You can’t write the history of the NFL without the core four of the Buffalo Bills, Jim Kelly, Bruce Smith, Thurman Thomas and Andre Reed,” he said.